Clothes-pin.



embracing a clothesline.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE- Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Dec. 26, 1905.

Application filed December 16, 1904:. Serial No. 237,055.

To all 7L77/O77l/ it may concern:

Be it known that I, FREDERICK H. PERRY, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Vest Medford, in the county of MiddleseX and State of Massachusetts, have invented an Improvement in Clothes-Pins, of which the following description, in connection with the accompanying drawings, is a specification, like letters on the drawings representing like parts.

This invention relates to that class of clothes-pins comprising detached or separate legs and a closing-spring, the object of the invention being to so construct the wooden legs as to greatly facilitate the application of the pin to the clothes on the line, the pin being so constructed that an open mouth leads into the line-space, as will be described.

Figure 1 in side elevation shows the clothespin closed. Fig. 2 shows the same open and Fig. 3 shows the spring detached; and Fig. 4 shows the legs in section through the space 9 in the line 00 as, Fig. 2, looking at the head or top end of said figure, the spring being shown in elevation.

The clothes-pin has two legs a b, the contiguous faces of which at the front or acting end of the pin are cut away to present a linespace 0 for the reception of a line, the legs being also out to present an open mouth d, (shown at the right, Fig. 1,) leading into said line-space. The legs under the action of the spring to be described normally contact with each other when the pin is not in use at a point a between the inner end of the linespace 0 and the spring-receiving recess 9 of the legs, and consequently, as shown in Fig. 1, the mouth (I at the acting or right-hand end of the pin and leading into the line-space is maintained open, so that the clothes and the line mayreadilypass through the mouth of the pin and enter the line-space, the spring at such time yielding. This construction obviates opening the pin by pinching the outer or head end together, as customary in other pins where a spring is used to close the legs. The spring-receiving recess 9 of the legs receives the central part of the spring it, composed of spring-wire, and presenting besides said central portion two coiled or circularly-bent portions h and two arms 71?, the

free ends of the arms being inturned at h to engage the backs of the legs, said inturned portions entering cross-notches b in the outsides of the legs. The contiguous faces of the legs have a common fulcrum at m, over which the legs tip as the pin is operfed while being pushed onto the line. (See Fig. 2.)

The clothes-pin herein shown maybe readily pushed onto clothes f, strung over a line f, as are the old-fashioned two-legged wooden clothes-pins; but owing to the legs being retained in coacting relation by a wire spring, which also serves normally to keep the legs closed, the legs cannot be broken off from the head, as in the usual wooden clothes-pin. Further, less stock is required for the production of the clothes-pin herein illustrated than is required for the production of the ordinary wooden clothespin.

Having fully described my invention, What I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

1. A clothes-pin presenting a wire spring of the class shown, and two'legs each shaped at its end to present a line-receiving space and an open mouth leading into said space, the front ends of said legs being out of contact except behind the rear end of said linereceiving space.

2. A clothes-pin presenting a wire spring of the class described and two legs shaped at their front ends to present a line-space, and an open mouth leading thereinto, said legs normally contacting between the central part of the spring and the line-space.

3. A clothes-pin presenting a wire spring of the class described and two legs shaped at their front ends to present a line-space, and a communicating open month, each of said legs being provided at their inner faces with a spring-receiving recess, the faces of said legs when the pin is not in use contacting between said line-space and said spring-receiving recess and tipping one on the other when the pin is put in use at a point between the head end of the pin and the central part of the spring.

4. A clothespin presenting a wire spring of the class described and two legs shaped as shown, said legs at their front ends presenting a line-receiving space, and a normally open mouth leading from the front end of In testimony whereof I have signed my said legs into said space, said legs contacting name to this specification in the presence of at their outer ends only as they are being two subscribing Witnesses.

separated at their front ends in opposition to FREDERICK H. PERRY. 5 the action of the spring as the front ends of Witnesses:

the pin are being passed onto clothes on a GEO. W. GREGORY,

line. MARGARET A. DUNN. 

